March 1, 1904.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
583 
Care should be taken to have the plants set in true 
lines eiich way. Many methods o£ accomplishing 
this will suggest themselves. My own way is to run 
a base line the width of the field at right angles to 
the beds ; I then stretch a line along each side of the 
bed to be planted, staking off these lines at the 
distance I wish to set the suckers in the long rows 
I use a strip of 1 bv 3 feet with notohes showing 
where each plant should be set aorois the bed, and 
move this strip from stake to stake, planting the 
suckers with a small hand trowel. 
The handle of the trowel may be used for pressing 
the earth firmly about the base of the plant. The only 
preparation of the sucker is to strip off the lower 
leaves, and cut the broken end clean that it may 
callus readily. 
CULTIVATION. 
The cultivation consists in keeping the plants clean 
all the time. Remember th,it the pine-apple is a'l 
aristocrat which will sulk if required to share its eur- 
roundings with more plebeian plants. In Florida, 
where the soil is practically barren of plant food, 
artifl'-ial manuring is necessary, and in the covered 
pineries about Oilando as much as 3 tons of highly 
concentrated fertilizers per acre are used. Again, 
the pine-apple shows its patrician tast-^s in that it 
is decidedly capricious as to its food. Such organic 
manures as cotton seed meal and castor pommace 
invariably give poor carrying fruit, though diied 
blood does not seem to be objectionable, as a test 
of 193 plots treated with different fertilizing ingre- 
dients and combiuations of ingredients carried on 
by the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station re- 
sulted in favour of blood, bone and potash. It is 
also strange that, though superphosphates rnade of 
bone treated with sulphuric acid are nob injurious, 
yet when the base is of rook phosphate (marine bone 
deposits) this is generally regarded as poisonous to 
the pine. I may remark, however, that 1 have never 
received any return from the money I have ex- 
pended for phosphoric acid for this fruit. Up to the 
present time, Jamaica soils do not seem to require 
artificial fertilizers, while in some cases their use 
seems to have resulted in actual disaster. It stands 
to reaso'i, however, that our soils cannot yield 10 to 
20 tons of iruit year after year without this drain 
needing to be made good in time, and I am much 
interested in a series of experimentj now being con- 
ducted by the Island Chemist, which may also show 
some effect on the carrying qualities of our fruit. 
GATHERING AND PACKING. 
What a sense of satisfaction the grower feels as, 
after mouths of anxiety and labour, his fruit ap- 
proaches maturity and he begins to think that his 
woefully one-sided ledger acccou"t may begin to 
show a better balanced appearance ! Yet beware the 
experience of the glass vendor in 'Arabian Nights' 
whose day dreams had made him Grand Vizier 
about to marry the Princess when a slip of the foot 
brought his bright visions and his fragile wares in 
ruin to the pavement! 'Eternal vigilance' is the 
Erice of satisfactory pine apple sales, and all your 
opes may be dashed even now by careless or im- 
proper methods. The woeful ineffioienoy, indifference 
and lack of loyalty on the part of the Jamaica 
labonrer makes the unceasing personal attention of 
the employer absolutely necessary, while the fruit 
is beiuB gathered and packed for shipment. It is 
Impoasible for me to explain, save in the field, just 
when a pine is fit for picking. It varies, indeed, 
with the season of the ye r and the distance it is ex- 
pected to carry. One point is vital— the fruit mu^t 
have attained its full size. A pine not properly 
matured will decay before it ripens, or if it ripen it 
will be a poor apology in fla.onr for this luscious 
fruit. An inch or more of the stem should be left 
attached to the fruit which is hung up by this to 
dry for 21 hours or more and ia then ready for 
packing. A number of styles of pine-apple crates 
are nsed, the important thing being that the^ should 
givegood ventilation. Until recently I have used tho 
' Orlando Pine-apple Grate,' 12 by 20 by 22 inches, 
holding two layers of eight to fourteen Smooth 
Cayenne or sixteen to twenty Bipleys. Later ex- 
perience, however, has assured mo that a single-layer 
crate ia more desirable, as the fruit seems to carry 
better. The buyer also prefers it as it enable him to 
inspect all the fruit at a glance. 
Pines should always be wrapped in something to 
protect them from bruising. Some use common Manila 
paper but this hardly gives tho desired protection. I 
use ' Excelsior ' made pine wood fhavings. Clean, dry 
hay or straw will answer. B.tuana trash well dried is 
also used. In the Azores, corn husks, stripped fine 
with a rasp like a largo curry comb, is the common 
packing material. Pines should be packed firmly that 
thay may not fall about, but should not be jammed 
into the box. In packing, the first pine is placed with 
the butt towards the packer in tho lower left hand cor- 
ner of the box, the second against it, the butt at the 
upner side of the box, the crowns overlapping, and so 
on. the butts and crowns alternating. If the box con- 
tain two layers, the first pine of the second layer 
goes in the uj'per left hand corner, the butt coming 
over the cro wu of the fruit below it. The two layers 
will be just reversed as in the method of ' breaking 
joints, ' as it is called, in orange p icking. Stencil the 
word ' Top ' on both top and bottom sides of the 
crate, that when opened the fruit may be seen in layers 
just as packed. As fur as possible the crowns should 
be protected from bruising as they add greatly to the 
appearance and selling value. Exercise every care to 
make the packige neat and attractive, for with fruit as 
with people ' first impressions go a long way,' 
INSECTS AND DISEASES. 
While the pine-apple requires and repays constant 
attention and care, yet when compared with many 
other plants it c muot be said that it suffers severely 
from insects or disease. 
The only insects which seem to affect it are — mealy 
bugs, red spider, and scale. The pi»3ial thief of 
course comes under the head of reptiles. The red 
spider and scale are rarely serious. The menly bug 
may become so if neglected, and will cause serious 
stunting of the plant and fruit. Infesting as it does 
the white portion of the leaves about the body of the 
plant the use of sprays is practically unavailing. Much 
good is done by dipping the base of the sucker in a 
decoction of tobacco stems, 1 lb. of tobacco to 2 gallons 
of water, before planting, but the only sure treatment 
is by fumigating with hydrocyanic acid gas as recently 
described in a Bulletin issued by the Jamaica Botani- 
cal Department. ' An ounce of prevention is worth a 
pound of cure.' 
The diseases or maladies of the pine are — ' blight,' 
' sanding,' ' spike,' and ' tangle-root.' 
' Blight ' is a very serious trouble generally ascribed 
to a fungus. An acquaintance who was visiting 
Jamaica last winter, and who is interested in scientific 
research in an amateur way, kiudly devoted much time 
to a study of this disease, making careful microscopic 
studies and cultural tests which demonstrated very 
clearly that healthy leaves can be inoculated througti 
the spores of diseased plants. In practice we have 
reason to believe that a diseased stock will prove a 
centre of infection for surrounding plants. The best 
course to pursue ia to dig up the plant and burn it 
immediately, saturating the soil where it stood with a 
strong solution of copperas. A plant, if taken up and 
the butt trimmed back to healthy tissues when the 
wilting is first discovered, may sometimes be saved, but, 
on the whole, I think it is wiser to be rid of it at once. 
Fortunately the disease does not spread rapidly and 
may easily be checked by the observant cultivator if 
taken in time.* 
• According to Webber ' blight ' or ' wilt ' is caused 
by a soil-inhabiting fungus which attacks the roots. 
[Yearbook. U. 6'. Department of AgriculWe, li9j.) 
Ed. W.LB.] * 
